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Johannesburg - Despite the small matter of a pending high court application against the company, FlySafair - the trading name of Safair Operations (Pty) Limited - commenced flight bookings on Monday, with Johannesburg to Cape Town flights running at R798 for a one-way flight (the first flight is on October 17).
This was a pretty smart move from them, both from an operational and a tactical point of view.
Let’s look at the operational side first.
Now, in my experience it’s rare for airlines to commence operations when they say they will. Typically, a target date for a launch is given and pushed back a couple of times. So, I must take my hat off to FlySafair - they said they’d start selling tickets in September, stuck to their guns and started doing so on Monday, September 23.
The first thing to happen after launch is usually that an excited public overloads the airline’s flight booking servers and swamp their call centres, followed by howls of protest from people that they can’t book flights.
This has been the case time and time again with the launch of new airlines - once again, compliments to FlySafair that this didn’t happen. Its booking engine mostly worked smoothly, one could get through to the call centre and this article’s author could even get through to their public relations company (PR Worx).
There were a couple of things which worked in FlySafair’s favour:
Indeed, this opens up the risk for any ticket buyer that they won't be able to use it if the court rules against FlySafair and the Air Services Licensing Council.
With the massive increase in airfares over the last couple of years, the South African public is desperate for cheap flights, and a court ruling against FlySafair is certain to infuriate people.
However, anybody who has already bought tickets and won’t be able to use them will be doubly infuriated by a court ruling against the Air Services Licensing Authority and FlySafair.
- Fin24
* Rob Baker is co-owner of South Africa Travel Online. Follow him on twitter on @southafricaTO.
This was a pretty smart move from them, both from an operational and a tactical point of view.
Let’s look at the operational side first.
Now, in my experience it’s rare for airlines to commence operations when they say they will. Typically, a target date for a launch is given and pushed back a couple of times. So, I must take my hat off to FlySafair - they said they’d start selling tickets in September, stuck to their guns and started doing so on Monday, September 23.
The first thing to happen after launch is usually that an excited public overloads the airline’s flight booking servers and swamp their call centres, followed by howls of protest from people that they can’t book flights.
This has been the case time and time again with the launch of new airlines - once again, compliments to FlySafair that this didn’t happen. Its booking engine mostly worked smoothly, one could get through to the call centre and this article’s author could even get through to their public relations company (PR Worx).
There were a couple of things which worked in FlySafair’s favour:
- They were vague about when in September they would launch and did not specify an exact date to start booking flights upfront, so the public weren’t amped to start looking to book on Monday.
- Monday fell during school holidays, when web traffic is typically a lot lower in South Africa. Tuesday was Heritage Day, so there was even lower traffic than usual, as many people put in a day’s leave on Monday.
Indeed, this opens up the risk for any ticket buyer that they won't be able to use it if the court rules against FlySafair and the Air Services Licensing Council.
With the massive increase in airfares over the last couple of years, the South African public is desperate for cheap flights, and a court ruling against FlySafair is certain to infuriate people.
However, anybody who has already bought tickets and won’t be able to use them will be doubly infuriated by a court ruling against the Air Services Licensing Authority and FlySafair.
- Fin24
* Rob Baker is co-owner of South Africa Travel Online. Follow him on twitter on @southafricaTO.
